Coach's Corner

In the face of disaster, how do you stay alive? Good thing for most of us, it's not a question we'll ever have to answer. In the hyperbole-filled little world of the games we play, metaphors relating to staying alive to fight another day are commonplace. Is it so hard to think of another way to say, "It's do or die" or "Their backs are against the wall"? Easy though it may be, hockey and basketball playoff announcers utter these grim admonitions in every third sentence, like they just came up with this catchy little phrase between promos for Witness to the Mob. So, let's call the Spurs' game, on their home court last Sunday with the Utah Jazz, a game for Spurs playoff survival; an oxygen mask the Spurs must grasp and hope the air's running clean and true. Alas, hope is a frail and unreliable companion. The oxygen canister was half full, the air hose held together with duct tape.

There's no doubt the Spurs could've prevailed in one or both games they lost in Utah. Road wins against the top NBA teams are unusual in the regular season. In this high-altitude area of the playoffs, even a chance to win on the road must be cradled and milked and drained dry. They don't happen often. For the Spurs, it happened twice. They had every road team's dream of having a clean last shot to win each game. Three shots: two to win in regulation, one in OT. They failed. That's all that mattered.

After the Spurs slaughtered Utah in game three at the Alamodome, everyone was already talking about going back to Utah and winning game five. The Sunday game was already chalked up in the win column. The general sentiment being: The Jazz were lucky to win both games in Utah, and now the Spurs would put the whip to them. But playoff basketball is about one thing: four wins. A win by 40 or a win by one - each win equals 25% of the season. A loss by one point still puts you 25% closer to summer vacation. Blowouts, like the kind San Antonio inflicted on Utah in game three, are invariably followed by a suicide effort, which often results in a win by the blown-out team. Elite pro teams don't like to be pissed on in front of millions of people, not to mention Bob Costas.

The Spurs, effectively acting as their own gravediggers, began each of the first three quarters badly. It's an NBA axiom: it's tough to win if you don't score. Yet, the Spurs doggedly tried to disprove this rule, beginning each quarter by going from five to seven minutes without scoring a basket. They survived two periods of this basketball roulette. At halftime, despite shooting percentages in the low 30s, they were only down by four. The big gun, too bad, finally boomed in quarter three. Before you could say, "Stop kicking me, Karl, you big, bad bully," the home team was buried by 12. Point, set, and match. The air is gone. The duct tape has come off. The series is over.

Malone was great. That's all there is to it. He was in a sizzling, game-long shooting zone. I've seen Malone play lots of games. I've never seen him shoot like this. In fact, Malone is usually at his worst when he falls in love with his fall away jumper. He's a power forward, not John Starks. This night, he could have played blindfolded. He just never missed. Each time the Spurs scratched their way back to three or five points, Malone would bury another 15-footer. I don't think his ball ever touched the iron all night. Only the swish, swish of the rippling net.

I think we can, with no criticism intended, now close the book on David Robinson. He stands on a plateau with very few athletes - Scottie Pippen comes to mind - who are excellent players, just a notch down from a true superstar. A superstar is defined as a player who can, when necessary, win critical games by himself. See Karl Malone. David Robinson did all anyone could do to stop Malone. His defense was fine. Jordan and Pippen could've doubled-teamed Malone all night, and the ball was going in. Still, the Jazz scored only 82 points. The Spurs defense was there. No, San Antonio lost the game on the other end. Playing only seven men (vividly highlighting their desperate Achilles' heel - a fatal lack of quality depth), the entire team, outside of Robinson and Duncan, scored only 36 points. San Antonio, alone among the teams left in the tournament, has no second unit.

With Houston's reality-defying comebacks from 3-1 deficits still so fresh in my memory, it's hard to say the Spurs are finished... but I will. That was a deep, dangerous Rocket team, with fistfuls of dependable three-point shooters to complement Hakeem, a true superstar. Del Negro, the Rifleman, and Jaren Jackson - the sum total of Spur perimeter firepower - don't equal one Robert Horry.

No, my darkhorse team to win the West is, I fear, dead. A darkhorse can't squander opportunities. They have to get lucky. This team wasted sweet chances to win. They have not been lucky. Yeah, sure, the Spurs might have been up 3-0. But they're not. It's 1-3. The air's too thin. The end is near.

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